I picked up an interesting piece of information while talking with Kyle Johnson, GM's Director of Communications for the Saturn Division, this week on the road from Temecula to San Diego during the GM Collection event.

If I understood him correctly, Johnson told me that GM had done studies that showed that consumers care more about the distance between fill-ups than they do about miles per gallon. At first that seemed like a counter-intuitive statement to me, until I gave it some more thought and considered my own attitude.

Filling your tank is always a jolt, whether you're putting 11.9 gallons in your Prius or 31.0 gallons in your Yukon. Chances are that the Prius driver and the Yukon driver are experiencing the jolt at roughly the same intervals -- between 300 and 400 miles in the real world. So the Yukon driver faces the issue of fuel economy and fuel prices with the same frequency, just with more intensity than the Prius driver.

Take a look at About Hybrid Cars to learn more about Hybrids, and About SUVs to explore the world of Sport Utility Vehicles. Let us know what you think about range vs. mpg -- which figure is more important to you?

Photo © Jason Fogelson